06 June, 2019Lockdown, life, and livelihood in the times of Corona
After around 36 hours of the lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in India, the Finance Minister announced a slew of welfare measures amounting to Rs. 1.7 trillion to support the vulnerable popu...
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Arjun Kumar Balwant Singh Mehta Simi Mehta 
07 April, 2020
- Perspectives
Balancing corruption and exclusion: Incorporating Aadhaar into PDS
How should recipients of publicly provided goods and services prove their identity in order to access these benefits? This article reports findings from a large-scale experiment across 15 million bene...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 17 April, 2020
- Articles
How has Covid-19 crisis affected urban poor? Findings from a phone survey - II
While several commentators have highlighted the plight of migrants due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, less is known about how low-income families living in urban shanty towns are faring. Afridi et al...
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Farzana Afridi Amrita Dhillon Sanchari Roy
- 11 May, 2020
- Notes from the Field
DUET: Need to keep open mind, pilot cautiously
Commenting on Drèze’s DUET proposal for an urban work programme, Sandip Sukhtankar contends that given the potential promise but obvious issues that need to be addressed, the proposal is indeed rip...
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Sandip Sukhtankar
- 24 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: Weighing the costs and benefits
Presenting her perspective on Drèze’s DUET proposal, Farzana Afridi contends that in the net, we need to evaluate the relative cost and benefit of having a potentially administratively complex urb...
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Farzana Afridi
- 21 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: Learning from the experiences of other countries
Commenting on Drèze’s DUET proposal, Martin Ravallion suggests that three steps are needed: learning from other countries’ experiences with similar policies, conducting trials in various contexts...
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Martin Ravallion
- 16 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: Addressing ‘why’ before ‘how’
Commenting on Drèze's DUET proposal and related views, Ashok Kotwal argues that we need to consider the rationale for such an urban work programme, before diving into the design details.
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Ashok Kotwal
- 15 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: Employment programme in public works in small towns
Given the severe problems of unemployment and under-employment in urban India, particularly among the country’s burgeoning youth population, Pranab Bardhan emphasises the need for an employment prog...
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Pranab Bardhan
- 12 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: Towards employment as a universal right
Debraj Ray contends that we should push forward with the agenda of employment as a universal right, and DUET would move that needle. He discusses two aspects of the proposal – keeping track of worke...
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Debraj Ray
- 11 September, 2020
- Perspectives
DUET: A proposal for an urban work programme
Jean Drèze presents a proposal for a simple scheme of subsidised public employment in urban areas, generated by multiple public institutions on their own initiative.
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Jean Drèze
- 09 September, 2020
- Symposium
A review of the coverage of PDS
The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...
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Reetika Khera Anmol Somanchi
- 19 August, 2020
- Perspectives
Covid-19: Willingness to vaccinate
Vaccination is among the success stories in modern-day medicine, and is seen by the WHO as a key element of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this note, Augsburg et al. discuss findings from a...
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Alex Armand Britta Augsburg Antonella Bancalari
- 05 August, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Covid-19: How long can consumption be sustained in lockdown?
In May 2020, the Finance Minister announced an economic relief package totaling Rs. 20 trillion, in response to the Covid-19 crisis. However, the actual stimulus is estimated to be only 1.3% of GDP. I...
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Anu Abraham Mohd. Imran Khan
- 20 July, 2020
- Perspectives
Pandemic as a lens: Identifying and addressing livelihood vulnerabilities
Based on the findings from a phone survey of around 5,000 Indian workers, the authors explore the impact of the Covid-19 economic lockdown on two forms of livelihood vulnerabilities: employment insecu...
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Rosa Abraham Amit Basole Surbhi Kesar Rahul Lahoti Paaritosh Nath
- 13 July, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Hunger and precarity: The state of nomadic fortune-tellers of Odisha
In this note, Abinash Dash Choudhury, who works as part of a network of researchers to present fortnightly data on the humanitarian crisis associated with Covid-19 in India, writes about the current s...
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Abinash Dash Choudhury
- 30 June, 2020
- Notes from the Field
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Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population
With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...
- Reetika Khera
- 25 March, 2020
- Perspectives
Lockdown, life, and livelihood in the times of Corona
After around 36 hours of the lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in India, the Finance Minister announced a slew of welfare measures amounting to Rs. 1.7 trillion to support the vulnerable popu...
- Arjun Kumar Balwant Singh Mehta Simi Mehta
- 07 April, 2020
- Perspectives
EWS reservation in higher education: Affirmative action or vote bank politics?
The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, provides for 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in higher educational institutions within the general category. In this post, Devi...
- Devika Malhotra Sharma
- 11 September, 2019
- Perspectives